The CCE is Norwich hub for volunteering

A Red Cross blood drive event held by the CCE. Picture by Norwich University

The Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) is the core of all volunteering that happens on or around campus.

“Any time you see students serving in the community, it is likely something that was scheduled out of our office,” said Jessika Acilio, the CCE acting director.

Service to others has always been a large part of Norwich’s history, but even many students may not understand the scope of the work and accomplishments credited to volunteers for CCE, such as a life-saving effort in a nearby Vermont town.

“For over 80 of Norwich’s cadets, they took it a step further to install over 460 lifesaving smoke detectors” for free in homes in Williamstown, Vt., said the Center for Civic Engagement acting director.

According to the 2014 publication of We Are Service, a CCE informational brochure, a “generous financial contribution” in 2009 from Norwich alumni John and Leslie Linfield, ‘94, allowed the CCE to be established.

Since the CCE was started in 2009, it has been run under Director Nicole DiDomenico, who is currently on maternity leave.

Norwich has held numerous events with countless amounts of volunteers in the last 10 years, helping different organizations and people throughout the Central Vermont community.

“The CCE is also the home of many different student-led volunteer organizations,” Acilio added.

Molly Alfond, 20, a junior mathematics major from Norfolk, Mass., has been able to see first-hand just how many people and events are coordinated through the office during the three years she has been here so far.

Alfond works in the CCE office as the coordinator in charge of volunteer and special events. She is also the co-president of the Rotaract Club.

If a member of the community “needs help moving furniture, raking leaves or extra help at a soup kitchen, I facilitate that,” Alfond said. “I also do our big events, specifically our sustainability events.” The sustainability events that the CCE oversees are the Drop and Swap held in October, and Trash to Treasure happening in May.

Alfond is just one staff member that is part of a larger team. Some of the other staff members are in charge of other events that include a service learning coordinator, student organization coordinator, and even an American Red Cross Coordinator.

The Red Cross has been coming to Norwich since 2011 to help collect blood and to also get students to sign up for the national bone marrow registry.

Although he is not the Red Cross coordinator, another team member is Aidan Gaffney, 21, a senior criminal justice major, from Highland Mills, N.Y. Gaffney is also a member of Norwich University Emergency and Medical Services (NUEMS), as well as a volunteer firefighter for Williamstown, Vt.

It was through Norwich’s standing relationship with the Red Cross and Gaffney’s relationship with the Williamstown Fire Department that as a junior he was able to coordinate the “Sound the Alarm” event.

The event started being planned, Gaffney said, when “just before (his) junior year there was a fire and a little boy’s life was taken.”

After the tragedy, the Williamstown Fire Department “applied for a grant through the American Red Cross to have smoke detectors installed through the Get Alarmed 802 Operation,” Gaffney said.

His role once they applied for the grant was to help find volunteers and register them through the CCE and Get Connected, then transport them to Williamstown to begin the training on how to properly install smoke alarms and where they should be installed.

The Red Cross was able to teach “students and community volunteers how to properly install” the smoke detectors, he said. After the classes, they were split up into groups and sent into the community.

The effort quickly gained a significant reward, said Gaffney. After just a few weeks one family proved lucky to have had the program, as “a smoke detector that was installed actually saved the lives of a family that had a fire,” Gaffney said.

Due to Gaffney’s work through the CCE, he was able to coordinate what the American Red Cross of New Hampshire and Vermont called “the most successful single-day smoke alarm installation event in (the) New Hampshire/Vermont region” as they presented Norwich University with one of their Hero Awards earlier this year at the annual Vermont Everyday Heroes Event.

This award is given by the Red Cross to celebrate people who do extraordinary things, and might not normally be recognized for their efforts.

Through Gaffney’s actions, the group was not only able to provide free installation of over 460 smoke detectors, but because of the efforts, they could potentially save hundreds of lives.

This event is just one of the many events that are held in the CCE, which also include weekly events, or one-time events. Students wanting to participate have many options. One-time events can be found on the Get Connected website; Get Connected is where students go and sign up for volunteer events after the coordinator adds the event onto the website.

The service learning coordinator works with professors to incorporate service in the classroom, and the student organization coordinators work most directly with the clubs, as well as planning the alternative breaks.

However, not every event will be posted on the website. Some events are run through student-led organizations such as clubs, and other larger events are only available through a paper application.

“The CCE also holds Alternative Thanksgiving and Spring Breaks for those students that might not be able to go home for the week-long breaks or for those who want to stay local and volunteer,” Acilio said.

The Alternative Thanksgiving break will be held locally this year, however “the Alternative Spring Break will be in Texas and Puerto Rico to help with disaster relief from Hurricane Harvey,” said Acilio, who noted paper applications are now open and are located in the office for the CCE.

The CCE is located on the third floor of the Wise Campus Center in room number 230, just past the Cadet Cash office.Students can email the office with questions at 4achange@norwich.edu.